The ongoing, non- stop economic collapse is accompanied by a parallel collapse across the world’s political system Unlike the 1930’s, which gave the country Franklin Delano Roosevelt after the blundering and ineffective Hoover, the political system currently – bought and paid for by the banking industry, Big Agriculture, Big Pharma, the insurance industry and others – coughs up hairball Sarah Palin.
She is to be politic’s Oliver Hardy to Obama’s Stan Laurel.
Conservatism could identified with James Madison, Winston Churchill or Dwight Eisenhower; Palin most closely resembles Maxwell Smart. Shoes are all important to both of these ‘candidates’. How can we forget Imelda Marcos? She also had a shoe fetish!
The problem doesn’t begin and end with Palin: the list of conservative occupants, princelings and ‘heirs’ apparent’ lined up to take available seats in both Congress and state (and municipal) governments are all ringers for ‘populist dead- ender’ Newt Gingrich. I suppose the idea is that enough brow- beating of ‘Liberals’ will solve the unsolvable, that racialism and gay bashing will remediate the irremediable and that somehow enough public stupidity will somehow distract the citizens away from the wholesale robbery taking place at the highest levels of both finance and government.
Which … has ceased any effort of governing. The Establishment has become a caricature of a nagging nanny, yet there is no attempt to navigate toward solutions to the big problems that are at the center of our current difficulties. For instance, when was the last time any politician mentioned ‘energy conservation’ outside some ‘pie in the sky’ techno- futuristic speculation? “Drill, Baby, drill!” mumbles Palin, who was not able to formulate a coherent state energy policy … in a state overflowing with energy reserves. How is the irresolute Palin supposed to steel the nation in the face of terminal crude oil decline?
Palin is a distraction and nothing more. She is a nincompoop who has no business having anything to do with public policy. That she is even considered to be a potential candidate for any kind of office anywhere – particularly after quitting her Alaska governor’s post during a time of crisis – is an indictment of the political process. If Palin wanted to convince anyone that she had some sense of direction and potential solutions up her sleeve, she should have stayed in Juneau and led by example.
She quit so she could enrich herself!
Palin Responds to ‘Run, Sarah, Run’
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: February 7, 2010NASHVILLE — Sarah Palin said she would consider a run for president in 2012 “if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family,” according to a television interview broadcast Sunday morning.
“It would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country,” she told host Chris Wallace on the news program “Fox News Sunday” in an interview conducted a few hours before her Saturday night address at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. “I won’t close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future.”
Those words were buttressed by the response she received inside the convention Saturday night. As Ms. Palin left the convention stage, the crowd erupted into chants of “Run, Sarah, Run.”
Ms. Palin gave the Tea Party crowd exactly what they wanted to hear on Saturday, declaring the primacy of the Tenth Amendment in limiting government powers, complaining about the bailouts and the “generational theft” of rising deficits, and urging the audience to back conservative challengers in contested primaries.
“America is ready for another revolution!” she told the crowd, prompting the first of several standing ovations.
While Ms. Palin told Fox News that she approved of President Obama’s beefing up the American military force in Afghanistan, she was dismissive of his decision to try some high-profile accused terrorists in United States civilian courtrooms. She called on Attorney General Eric Holder, who formally made the decision, to resign.
“We’re at war and these are acts of war that these terrorists are committing and we need to treat them differently,” she said. “I don’t think terrorists are worthy of rights that people like my son fight and are willing to die for.”
In the Fox interview, Mr. Wallace took note of a poll showing her leading other potential Republican candidates with 16 percent of the respondents, and asked if she was more knowledgeable on domestic and foreign matters now than during her run in 2008 as the Republican vice presidential candidate.
“I would hope so,” she replied. Before she was chosen as John McCain’s running mate, she said, her “engagement was with the state of Alaska” and such issues as ramping up energy production. She was often criticized during that campaign as ignorant of key policy matters.
How about Lloyd Blankfein for President?
While US electoral politics sinks further into the swamp of finger pointing, hyper – and pointless – partisanship, uber- corruption and influence peddling, the game of chicken between Germany and the ‘PIIGS – Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Spain – demonstrates that Americans do not have a monopoly on stupidity. What is taking place in Europe is a charade! Everyone knows that the rich euro states will bail out the PIIGS and they know that everyone knows. That the game of chicken is even considered seriously as a policy substitute suggests that the form- function connection has been finally undone. Part of this is the miasma of delusion that suggests that ‘sometime in the immediate future’ the ‘crisis will end by itself’ and that the world’s economies will return to ‘sustainable growth’. All of this will take place by magic or by an expedition of Bankers From Mars or some other location. Policy makers are worriedly looking at calendars calculating how long it will take before the funds run out hoping the growth arrives first.
Politicians cannot face the truth, that industrial growth is finished and another way is required.
That the players in the US state and municipal governments are posturing rather than trying to match revenue to expenses indicates that stupid is working at ALL the levels of government in the US. Somehow, the states’ workers are supposed to keep doing their jobs with rapidly diminishing funds. Funds are supposed to magically appear from flat- broke taxpayers. Nobody in charge will think the unthinkable and demand cuts in energy consumption. Nobody has the wit to suggest plans for a different kind of American Way of Life that doesn’t include the baked- in massive energy waste. Stupid is integral to the denial, that there is a way to have the cake and eat it. That the contradictions cannot be reconciled does not enter the discussion, the entire process from start to finish is stupid James Howard Kunstler is correct. Suburbia was a bad investment. The people in charge still refuse to accept this as a fact.
Unfortunately, the ‘stupidity paradigm’ ends up in municipal bankruptcy, destroyed pensions, mass unemployment and a constitutional crisis.
States have no clear means of bankruptcy. Like Greece and Spain, US states are autonomous Constitutional entities. Like Greece, the US states cannot ‘bail themselves out’ by printing their own currencies.
Meanwhile, more bailouts are on the way, both here and the Eurozone. There is no policy followup: nobody has a clue about what to do AFTER the bailout sequence ends. As in the US, there is the ‘cash drawer raid’ where the bankers enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. What’s next?
As in America, Euro- policy has been hijacked by ‘interests’. The amount of dirty money is expanding. At some point there will be no other kind. Corruption is now the fatal flaw in the ointment.
China is having similar problems; a leadership that doesn’t have a clue. They’ve adopted the ‘Made In USA’ suburban, car- centric, consumption- oriented ‘Economic Model of Stupid’ just as that model is falling apart. What next in China? An observation from Victor Shih:
Northwestern University’s Most Distinguished Alumni
While I am in the mood, I would like to post my favorite article in the past week which is about the commercial endeavors of Wen Jiabao’s son Wen Yunsong, who now runs a PE outfit called New Horizon Capital. It has big money behind it in the form of Temasek and Softbank. Due to his genius and a first-rate education from Northwestern University, the fund has landed several high profile deals already. Although he is flying high now, he may become a point of vulnerability for the Hu Jintao faction. With his son in such a high profile situation, Wen will be vulnerable to blackmail by the princelings, who are also engaged in their own private equity activities across China. I am not saying there is dirt, but the chance is that there is some dirt on Wen junior. So, in the run-up to the 18th Party Congress, I think Wen will, as usual, wait and see which way the wind blows and throw his weight behind the likely winner. Given his son’s vulnerability and the princelings’ ability to deliver sweet-heart deals, Wen may not be a reliable ally to Hu.
Corruption was invented in China, the citizens have had a lot of practice in coping with it. On the other hand, how will the Chinese deal with their massive and growing bubble/inflation problems with the political system is riddled with cronies and ‘favorite sons’?
For every Wen Yunsong, there are thousands of minor league well- connected ‘businessmen’ and ‘traders’ who all have their blood- funnels buried in the corpus of China’s government. As there are more strains on the Chinese banking system – inflationary and otherwise – the cronies’ official patrons will make sure that no harm comes to them. Right now the banks in China need to rein in their lending in order to take the air out of property bubbles. With cronyism entrenched, the banks will continue lending even as that amplifies inflation.
The interests of the borrowers is in fact supported by more and greater inflation; their borrowings will vanish as the denominations they are measured in shrink. The more connections between favored insiders and their business deals … and the government makes severe inflation much more likely. The Chinese system will bend ot the desires of its elites.
Until it cannot anymore.
An underlying assumption that Palin, Gingrich, Trichet, and Wen Jiabao all share is the belief the current style of social organization and economic hierarchies has matured into an establishment that has become too big to fail. The meaning here is that there are now so many resources at the Establishment’s disposal that the current economic contretemps cannot effect the whole. In the light of this assumption, inept leadership is no better, no worse than no leadership at all! In fact leadership itself is of little account. Policy making is a step on the ladder to riches, the system runs itself.
Until it cannot, anymore.
The assumption is wrong; at issue is resources. The system that consumes them is too efficient. Making consumption even more efficient is self- defeating. There has been for a long time no penalty for stupidity in America … and by extension any country that took to mimic America’s consumerist, post- modern approach.
Times have changed, this is the end of stylish incompetence. What is now demonstrated daily by the current President and Congress is that stupidity now has consequences. It is a danger to us all.